Under a Dark Moon [Oneus AU]

Little Lies

Luella was finally freed from kitchen duty by Nellie once the dishes were done. She hiked up her dress skirt and went skipping through the hallways, looking for something to entertain herself.

As she was passing by the tall windows that lined the hallway, she noticed something unusual going on outside. Her feet stuttered to a stop, and she leaned against the sill to get a better look.

Her heart immediately began to thump wildly in her chest when she realized what and who was in the garden. Gunhak was out there, chopping wood against the old stump that Luella always sat on when she was reading in the garden.

He was shirtless, gleaming with sweat, sculpted like some marble statue in a fancy museum. Luella felt herself suck in a sharp breath, then she let out a small, involuntary squeal before dropping to the floor below the window sill.

Her hands held onto it, though she kept her head and gaze beneath it. It might have seemed strange to anyone passing by, to see her crouched down on the floor beneath the window with her head hung low to avoid looking out at the shirtless man chopping wood for their fireplace.

She had never seen a man shirtless, not like that. The only experience she had with such a thing was through the black and white words of Nellie’s novels that she read in secret. However, Gunhak was there, in the flesh, half undressed in the manor garden. It was an entirely different experience seeing it rather than reading about it.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get her heart to stop thudding against her ribcage with violent force. Her face was burning, which was obvious to anyone who might happen upon her, she imagined. Luella wasn’t a young child, so why did she suddenly feel like she knew nothing of the world and the creatures that inhabited it?

It was as if she was discovering the beauty of man for the first time in her life.

“Are you spying on Gunhak?” A voice spoke from behind her.

Luella yelped her surprise, jumping so hard in her own skin that she fell backwards and landed on her bottom. She turned over her shoulder to see Youngjo standing there, his arms folded over his chest and a grin on his face.

“N-No. I was doing no such thing,” she stuttered out as she pushed herself up to her feet. She shook her dress skirt and dusted herself off quickly before looking up at him with more confidence. “I was simply wondering why he was chopping the wood instead of our gardener, Mr. Morrow.”

“Maybe he was bored,” Youngjo shrugged, “or perhaps he has some aggression he needs to rid himself of. Either way, does it interest you so that you must watch him through the window?”

“I was not watching!” She argued with an adorable pout. “I just happened to notice him out there as I was walking by. I was on my way to do other things.”

“What things?”

“W-Well,” she blinked at him, a little caught off guard by his further questioning. Luella wracked her brain for a believable lie. “I was on my way to help Nellie in the kitchen.”

“Really?” He raised a brow. “That’s rather interesting, considering I just came by there. Your nanny told me you had just finished for the day and I might find you in the library.”

That would have been a better lie, she cursed at herself.

Panicked, Luella began to look around for something, anything that might help her out of the situation she was in. She had already lied and was caught doing so. It would be difficult to recover from.

As if an angel sent him to save her, Donju emerged from the other end of the hallway, rubbing at his temples to ease some obvious pain.

"You're right. I lied," she huffed out quietly to Youngjo. "The truth is that I wanted to see Dongju. I thought perhaps you might misunderstand if I told you I was meeting him here."